Show Don't Tell: Mark 10:28-31

Instead of saying "Jesus promised rewards for leaving everything," hear Peter's implicit question. Peter speaks up: "We have left everything to follow you!" The unspoken question: what do we get? Jesus answers: "Truly I tell you, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life." A hundredfold return—family and fields multiplied in the community of believers. But Mark alone adds: "along with persecutions." The return comes with cost. "But many who are first will be last, and the last first." The calculus of the kingdom inverts worldly rankings. What looks like sacrifice becomes multiplication. What looks like loss becomes gain.